Re: What is the difference between modprobe and insmod?

[Joel Newkirk <netfilter@newkirk.us>]

On Friday 20 December 2002 02:11 am, bobo wrote:
>          While writing IPtables scripts,there are two command: 
> modprobe and insmod.
>
>          In some example,some use : modprobe ip_tables,but others use:
> insmod  ip_tables.
>
>          Why?  Is there difference between them?

For the purpose of loading specified modules you can consider them the 
same.  Modprobe is a higher-level interface that will call insmod.  I 
personally use modprobe since it succeeds silently.  IE, if it 
successfully loads the module, or if the module is already loaded, 
insmod will report this, while modprobe will not output anything in 
these situations.  They will both, by default, report failure to 
find/load a module, and the -q option tells them both to be quiet about 
errors, but insmod will /still/ report success even with -q.

For full details see "man insmod" and "man modprobe"... :^)
(under KDE, the default IIRC with RedHat 7.2,  using alt-F2 then #insmod 
in the dialog, or #insmod as a URL in konquerer works nicely)

j